A candidate for the US presidency with a long record of accomplishment has trouble connecting with the electorate. He is stiff. He is wooden. He leaves even his supporters cold. He says things and tells personal stories that strike people as weird. As a candidate he fails to generate excitement. The year is 2000 and the candidate’s name is Al Gore. Despite his record of strong accomplishment and the economy in his favor, he goes on to lose the election.

But fast forward to 2006, and what do we see? Al Gore has transformed himself from Mr. Boring into Mr. Excitement. Now he is able to communicate a difficult message to audiences that don’t want to hear it. He can fill a stadium deep in Republican territory faster than Elton John. For his efforts, Al Gore wins an Emmy, an Oscar and even the Nobel Peace Prize.

What’s the difference between the Al Gore of 2000 and the Al Gore of 2006? During those six years, Al Gore mastered the art of leadership storytelling. He learned how to tell leadership stories that successfully communicate a complex message, as well as who he is as an engaging person. Whatever one may think of Al Gore’s message or his politics, the fact remains: in those six years, Al Gore learned how to be an inspirational leader.

Mitt Romney’s Al Gore problem

Now in 2012, Mitt Romney has an Al Gore problem. Despite his strong record of accomplishment, he is leaving the Republican electorate cold. He is stiff. He is wooden. He says things and tells personal stories that strike people as weird. As a candidate he fails to generate excitement. He risks not only losing the election but taking down the Republican party with him.

Business School Case Study: Company R has the financial resources, the professional staff, the marketing know-how, and the business expertise to dominate its competition. But despite the near-universal familiarity of its signature product, Company R has been dramatically losing market share to upstart challenger Company S, which until recently was little-noticed outside of rural Iowa.

Company R is obviously due for a major re-branding. But there is a major obstacle—Company R has changed its marketing strategy so often in the last decade that consumers have no clear idea what makes it distinctive. Asked to describe Company R’s positive attributes, focus-group participants constantly say things like “It’s rich” and “It’s safe” and “It’s there.”

Because Company R’s sales are plunging in Michigan, the state where it got its start, the futures markets are shorting the stock. Suddenly, a total collapse seems possible. Assignment: Prepare a PowerPoint showing how you would execute a rapid-fire turnaround.

Three non-viable strategies

Shapiro considers and rejects three strategies:

“Romney as the comeback kid à la Bill Clinton in 1992”: Shapiro argues that Romney has no core to come back from.

“Romney should co-opt opposition’s trump card,” à la George W. Bush in 2000: the danger here is that his opponent’s trump cards like removing Federal and State support for education or banning contraception will be poison in the general election.

“Let Mitt be Mitt”: The problem here, according to Shapiro, is that Romney has “an unerring instinct for insincere bombast” (e.g. “severely conservative”): “hiding behind that Mitt Romney mask is (yikes) another Mitt Romney mask.”

Shapiro concludes: “The brutal truth is that there are some business-school problems that are as hard to solve as Fermat’s Last Theorem. A new marketing campaign or a clever slogan cannot save a dog food that the dogs don’t like. So too is it with the Romney campaign…”

Four keys to rescue the Romney campaign

Yet is the Romney case so hopeless? Even Fermat's Last Theorem was eventually solved. As someone who advises leaders on communications, I tempted to respond to Shapiro's challenge, not as a Republican or Democrat, but rather thinking through: what is possible in such a situation? How do you rescue a collapsing brand?

DO come with a clear vision: One obvious key is to come with a clear vision of where you want the country to go and promulgate that vision rapidly and forcefully with authentic leadership storytelling. Romney needs to stop telling distracting stories like the strange story he tells about how as a young man he used lipstick to write on the soles of his friend's shoes at a wedding. Here he is falling into Al Gore trap in 2000 of following the advice of his advisers “to tell stories that humanize you.” Instead Romney should have an arsenal of stories that depict the difficult leadership challenges that he obviously has faced in his long and successful career and how he overcame them. These should be authentically true stories related to his character as a leader and the future he sees for the country. He should practice telling these stories until he can perform them without distracting goofs and asides so that they reflect his genuine values and accomplishments. The idea that “Romney has no core” is absurd. He needs to stop listening to what his advisers are telling him to say, take the time rediscover those moments when his genuine self came through and communicate those moments through leadership stories.

DO identify your core stakeholders: Romney should articulate his vision for the country and drive his campaign to be responsive to his core stakeholders. His stakeholders are not the people who want to remove both Federal and State government from education, or those who want to ban contraception. While it is tempting to see these fringe groups as important from a short-term transactional perspective, as they vote in the Republican primaries, they are not Romney's future. They are not the stakeholders Romney needs for ultimate success in the general election. His core groups include: (a) all the women who do use contraceptives (98% of the US population); (b) business people who are fed up with excessive regulation; (c) all the people who feel that the Government is too large; and (d) people who feel that the country is too dependent on entitlements, at all levels. This coalition of interest groups is big enough to win both the Republican primaries and the general election. He should focus on them, not the fringes.

DO be explicit on your values: Romney should introduceand consistently communicate the values that his career so clearly exemplifies: thrift, hard work, focus, religious faith, service to his fellow man. These values are nothing to be ashamed of. They are the essence of genuine conservatism, as opposed to the fake chimeras that are now roiling the Republican party. By forcefully identifying the fake chimeras as such, he could help bring the Republican party to its senses and become a true leader.

DO be truthful:Romney has created the impression that he is willing to say anything in order to win the nomination. Whatever the short-term transactional gains that such positions may achieve in the Republican primaries, they are poisonous baggage to carry into the general election. Leadership storytelling only works if the stories are true. There are plenty of things to legitimately criticize the administration for without resorting to trumped up charges. For instance, the current administration’s apparent inability to do anything about the bloated Federal bureaucracy could be a centerpiece. Stick to the truth and hammer at that.

DOadmit your flaws and laugh at them. Romney is currently running away from his perceived weaknesses his , trying to hide them or deny them. This only makes them more noticeable. Instead, like JFK who was seen as questionable because of the wealth of his family and his Catholic faith, he should make light of them. JFK’s message was clear: if he could laugh at his weaknesses, so should everyone else. So what if Romney has a tendency to make goofy remarks, and sings songs off-key? Romney should admit his flaws, even flaunt them, laugh at them and move on.

The leadership core within ourselves

We all have a core of leadership stories within ourselves. All Mitt Romney has to do is find them and communicate them.